Canvas is an extremely durable plain-woven fabric used for making sails, tents, marquees, backpacks, shelters, as a support for oil painting and for other items for which sturdiness is required, as well as in such fashion objects as handbags, electronic device cases, and shoes. It is popularly used by artists as a painting surface, typically stretched across a wooden frame.
Modern canvas is usually made of cotton or linen, or sometimes polyvinyl chloride (PVC), although historically it was made from hemp. It differs from other heavy cotton fabrics, such as denim, in being plain weave rather than twill weave. Canvas comes in two basic types: plain and duck. The threads in duck canvas are more tightly woven. The term duck comes from the Dutch word for cloth, doek. In the United States, canvas is classified in two ways: by weight (ounces per square yard) and by a graded number system. The numbers run in reverse of the weight so a number 10 canvas is lighter than number 4.
The word "canvas" is derived from the 13th century Anglo-French canevaz and the Old French canevas. Both may be derivatives of the Vulgar Latin cannapaceus for "made of hemp", originating from the Greek κάνναβις (cannabis). [2] [3]
Canvas has become the most common support medium for oil painting, replacing wooden panels. It was used from the 14th century in Italy, but only rarely. One of the earliest surviving oils on canvas is a French Madonna with angels from around 1410 in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin. Its use in Saint George and the Dragon by Paolo Uccello in about 1470, [4] and Sandro Botticelli's Birth of Venus in the 1480s was still unusual for the period. Large paintings for country houses were apparently more likely to be on canvas, and are perhaps less likely to have survived. It was a good deal cheaper than a panel painting, and may sometime indicate a painting regarded as less important. In the Uccello, the armour does not use silver leaf, as other of his paintings do (and the colour therefore remains undegraded). [5] Another common category of paintings on lighter cloth such as linen was in distemper or glue, often used for banners to be carried in procession. This is a less durable medium, and surviving examples such as Dirk Bouts' Entombment , in distemper on linen (1450s, National Gallery) are rare, and often rather faded in appearance.
Panel painting remained more common until the 16th century in Italy and the 17th century in Northern Europe. Mantegna and Venetian artists were among those leading the change; Venetian sail canvas was readily available and regarded as the best quality.
Canvas is usually stretched across a wooden frame called a stretcher and may be coated with gesso prior to being used to prevent oil paint from coming into direct contact with the canvas fibres which would eventually cause the canvas to decay. A traditional and flexible chalk gesso is composed of lead carbonate and linseed oil, applied over a rabbit skin glue ground; a variation using titanium white pigment and calcium carbonate is rather brittle and susceptible to cracking. As lead-based paint is poisonous, care has to be taken in using it. Various alternative and more flexible canvas primers are commercially available, the most popular being a synthetic latex paint composed of titanium dioxide and calcium carbonate, bound with a thermo-plastic emulsion.
Many artists have painted onto unprimed canvas, such as Jackson Pollock, [6] Kenneth Noland, Francis Bacon, Helen Frankenthaler, Dan Christensen, Larry Zox, Ronnie Landfield, Color Field painters, Lyrical Abstractionists and others. Staining acrylic paint into the fabric of cotton duck canvas was more benign and less damaging to the fabric of the canvas than the use of oil paint. In 1970, artist Helen Frankenthaler commented about her use of staining:
When I first started doing the stain paintings, I left large areas of canvas unpainted, I think, because the canvas itself acted as forcefully and as positively as paint or line or color. In other words, the very ground was part of the medium, so that instead of thinking of it as background or negative space or an empty spot, that area did not need paint because it had paint next to it. The thing was to decide where to leave it and where to fill it and where to say this doesn't need another line or another pail of colors. It's saying it in space. [7]
Early canvas was made of linen, a sturdy brownish fabric of considerable strength. Linen is particularly suitable for the use of oil paint. In the early 20th century, cotton canvas, often referred to as "cotton duck", came into use. Linen is composed of higher quality material, and remains popular with many professional artists, especially those who work with oil paint. Cotton duck, which stretches more fully and has an even, mechanical weave, offers a more economical alternative. The advent of acrylic paint has greatly increased the popularity and use of cotton duck canvas. Linen and cotton derive from two entirely different plants, the flax plant and the cotton plant, respectively.
Gessoed canvases on stretchers are also available. They are available in a variety of weights: light-weight is about 4 oz/sq yd (140 g/m2) or 5 oz/sq yd (170 g/m2); medium-weight is about 7 oz/sq yd (240 g/m2) or 8 oz/sq yd (270 g/m2); heavy-weight is about 10 oz/sq yd (340 g/m2) or 12 oz/sq yd (410 g/m2). They are prepared with two or three coats of gesso and are ready for use straight away. Artists desiring greater control of their painting surface may add a coat or two of their preferred gesso. Professional artists who wish to work on canvas may prepare their own canvas in the traditional manner.
One of the most outstanding differences between modern painting techniques and those of the Flemish and Dutch Masters is in the preparation of the canvas. "Modern" techniques take advantage of both the canvas texture as well as those of the paint itself. Renaissance masters took extreme measures to ensure that none of the texture of the canvas came through. This required a painstaking, months-long process of layering the raw canvas with (usually) lead-white paint, then polishing the surface, and then repeating. [8] The final product had little resemblance to fabric, but instead had a glossy, enamel-like finish.
With a properly prepared canvas, the painter will find that each subsequent layer of color glides on in a "buttery" manner, and that with the proper consistency of application (fat over lean technique), a painting entirely devoid of brushstrokes can be achieved. A warm iron is applied over a piece of wet cotton to flatten the wrinkles.
Canvas can also be printed on using offset or specialist digital printers to create canvas prints. This process of digital inkjet printing is popularly referred to as Giclée. After printing, the canvas can be wrapped around a stretcher and displayed.
Canvas is a popular base fabric for embroidery such as cross-stitch and Berlin wool work. [9] Some specific types of embroidery canvases are Aida cloth (also called Java canvas [10] ), Penelope canvas, Chess canvas, and Binca canvas. [11] [12] [13] Plastic canvas is a stiffer form of Binca canvas. [14]
From the 13th century onwards, canvas was used as a covering layer on pavise shields. The canvas was applied to the wooden surface of the pavise, covered with multiple layers of gesso and often richly painted in tempera technique. Finally, the surface was sealed with a transparent varnish. While the gessoed canvas was a perfect painting surface, the primary purpose of the canvas application may have been the strengthening of the wooden shield corpus in a manner similar to modern glass-reinforced plastic.
Splined canvases differ from traditional side-stapled canvas in that canvas is attached with a spline at the rear of the frame. This allows the artist to incorporate painted edges into the artwork itself without staples at the sides, and the artwork can be displayed without a frame. Splined canvas can be restretched by adjusting the spline.
Stapled canvases stay stretched tighter over a longer period of time, but are more difficult to re-stretch when the need arises.
Canvas boards are made of canvas stretched over and glued to a cardboard backing, and sealed on the backside. The canvas is typically linen primed for a certain type of paint. They are primarily used by artists for quick studies.
Understanding the mechanical properties of art canvases is necessary for art conservation, especially when deciding on transporting paintings, conservation treatments and environmental specifications inside museums. [15] Canvases are layered structures made from weaving fibers together, where each layer responds differently to changes in humidity, resulting in localized stresses that cause deformation, cracking, and delamination. [15] There are two directions to the canvas: the warp direction (threads run vertically) and the weft direction (threads run horizontally). Researchers performed tensile testing to determine the effects of humidity on the strength of canvases and observed that increasing humidity decreased the effective elastic modulus (combined modulus of the weft and warp directions). For example, the effective modulus at 30% relative humidity is 180 MPa, which drops to 13 MPa at 90% relative humidity, suggesting that canvas is becoming more flexible and susceptible to deformation. [15] There is an inherent anisotropy to the elastic modulus measured in the weft and warp direction as evidenced in the strain vs. load behavior of the canvas. The canvas exhibits a 0.1 strain in the weft direction and 0.2 strain in the warp direction before failing (thread ripping apart). [15] Though, tensile testing provides an explicit measure of material strength, conservationists are unable to tare a piece of painting to create the samples (required length of 250 mm), therefore the traditional methods of assessing mechanical properties have been visual cues and pH values. [16]
Art conservationists have recently adopted a new method called zero-span strength analysis, nanoindentation, and numerical modelling to quantitatively evaluate the mechanical properties of painting canvases. [16] [17] [18] Zero-span strength analysis measures the tensile strength of materials, such as paper and yarns, by reducing the clamping distance to 0.1 mm and applying load to a particular point on the yarn. [16] [19] This minimizes effects from material geometry and accurately assesses intrinsic fiber strength. This also reduces the amount of material needed for samples to 60 mm. [16] Using zero-span strength analysis, conservationists measured tensile strength of flax, commonly used canvas material in historical paintings and correlated tensile strength to the degree of cellulose depolymerization -- cellulose is a component of flax. [16] Another method for assessing canvas quality is nanoindentation utilizing a millimeter-sized cantilever with a microsphere at its end and measuring local viscoelastic properties. [18] However, with the nanoindentation method, conservationists can probe the composite behavior of the layers of paint on top of the canvas, not the actual strength of the canvas itself. Lastly, conservationists are using finite element modeling (FEM) and extended-FEM (XFEM) on canvases undergoing desiccation (removal of moisture) to visualize the global and local stresses. [17]
Acrylic paint is a fast-drying paint made of pigment suspended in acrylic polymer emulsion and plasticizers, silicone oils, defoamers, stabilizers, or metal soaps. Most acrylic paints are water-based, but become water-resistant when dry. Depending on how much the paint is diluted with water, or modified with acrylic gels, mediums, or pastes, the finished acrylic painting can resemble a watercolor, a gouache, or an oil painting, or it may have its own unique characteristics not attainable with other media.
Oil painting is a painting method involving the procedure of painting with pigments with a medium of drying oil as the binder. It has been the most common technique for artistic painting on canvas, wood panel or copper for several centuries, spreading from Europe to the rest of the world. The advantages of oil for painting images include "greater flexibility, richer and denser colour, the use of layers, and a wider range from light to dark". But the process is slower, especially when one layer of paint needs to be allowed to dry before another is applied.
Gesso, also known as "glue gesso" or "Italian gesso", is a white paint mixture used to coat rigid surfaces such as wooden painting panels or masonite as a permanent absorbent primer substrate for painting. It consists of a binder mixed with chalk, gypsum, pigment, or any combination of these.
Craquelure is a fine pattern of dense cracking formed on the surface of materials. It can be a result of drying, shock, aging, intentional patterning, or a combination of all four. The term is most often used to refer to tempera or oil paintings, but it can also develop in old ivory carvings or painted miniatures on an ivory backing. Recently, analysis of craquelure has been proposed as a way to authenticate art.
Textile manufacturing or textile engineering is a major industry. It is largely based on the conversion of fibre into yarn, then yarn into fabric. These are then dyed or printed, fabricated into cloth which is then converted into useful goods such as clothing, household items, upholstery and various industrial products.
Cordura is a collection of synthetic fiber-based fabric technologies used in a wide array of products including luggage, backpacks, trousers, military wear and performance apparel.
Sailcloth is cloth used to make sails. It can be made of a variety of materials, including natural fibers such as flax, hemp, or cotton in various forms of sail canvas, and synthetic fibers such as nylon, polyester, aramids, and carbon fibers in various woven, spun, and molded textiles.
Rabbit-skin glue is a sizing that also acts as an adhesive. It is a type of animal glue that is essentially refined rabbit collagen. The glue has been used for centuries for stretching and priming canvases for oil painting. It has also been an ingredient in traditional gesso.
Cotton duck, also simply duck, sometimes duck cloth or duck canvas, is a heavy, plain woven cotton fabric. Duck canvas is more tightly woven than plain canvas. There is also linen duck, which is less often used.
Aging is a process by which an artwork, typically a painting or sculpture, is made to appear old. It is meant to emulate the natural deterioration that can occur over many decades or centuries. Although there may be "innocent" reasons for it, ageing is a technique very often used in art forgery.
The manufacture of textiles is one of the oldest of human technologies. To make textiles, the first requirement is a source of fiber from which a yarn can be made, primarily by spinning. The yarn is processed by knitting or weaving, which turns yarn into cloth. The machine used for weaving is the loom. For decoration, the process of colouring yarn or the finished material is dyeing. For more information of the various steps, see textile manufacturing.
Textile fibers, threads, yarns and fabrics are measured in a multiplicity of units.
Madapollam is a soft cotton fabric manufactured from fine yarns with a dense pick laid out in linen weave. Madapollam is used as an embroidery and handkerchief fabric and as a base for fabric printing. The equal warp and weft mean that the tensile strength and shrinkage is the same in any two directions at right angles and that the fabric absorbs liquids such as ink, paint and aircraft dope equally along its X and Y axes.
Glue-size is a painting technique in which pigment is bound (sized) to cloth with hide glue, and typically the unvarnished cloth was then fixed to the frame using the same glue. Glue-size is also known as distemper, though the term "distemper" is applied variously to different techniques. Glue-size was used because hide glue was a popular binding medium in the 15th century, particularly among artists of the Early Netherlandish period, who used it as an inexpensive alternative to oil. Although a large number of works using this medium were produced, few survive today, mainly because of the high perishability of linen cloth and the solubility of hide glue. Well-known and relatively well-preserved – though substantially damaged – the most notable examples include Quentin Matsys' Virgin and Child with Saints Barbara and Catherine and Dirk Bouts' Entombment. In German the technique is known as Tüchleinfarben, meaning "small cloth colours", or Tüchlein, derived from the German word for “handkerchief”.
Oilcloth, also known as enameled cloth or American cloth, is close-woven cotton duck or linen cloth with a coating of boiled linseed oil to make it waterproof.
The lining of paintings is a process of conservation science and art restoration used to strengthen, flatten or consolidate oil or tempera paintings on canvas by attaching a new support to the back of the existing one. The process is sometimes referred to as relining. Most often a new support will be added directly to the back of an existing canvas. In cases of extreme decay, however, the original canvas may be completely removed and replaced. The height of the practice's use peaked in the late 19th century and in the following years its usefulness has been debated. There are many different factors that influence whether lining a painting will be successful. By paying close attention to an artwork's condition and response to treatment, conservation professionals better understand the lining process and when to apply it.
The conservation and restoration of paintings is carried out by professional painting conservators. Paintings cover a wide range of various mediums, materials, and their supports. Painting types include fine art to decorative and functional objects spanning from acrylics, frescoes, and oil paint on various surfaces, egg tempera on panels and canvas, lacquer painting, water color and more. Knowing the materials of any given painting and its support allows for the proper restoration and conservation practices. All components of a painting will react to its environment differently, and impact the artwork as a whole. These material components along with collections care will determine the longevity of a painting. The first steps to conservation and restoration is preventive conservation followed by active restoration with the artist's intent in mind.
Beware of Luxury is a 1663 oil painting by the Dutch painter Jan Steen, now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.
In visual arts, the ground is a prepared surface that covers the support of the picture and underlies the actual painting. Occasionally the term is also used in a broad sense to designate any surface used for painting, for example, paper for watercolor or plaster for fresco.
In visual arts, the support is a solid surface onto which the painting is placed, typically a canvas or a panel. Support is technically distinct from the overlaying ground, but sometimes the latter term is used in a broad sense of "support" to designate any surface used for painting, for example, paper for watercolor or plaster for fresco.
the largest Polish painting "Battle of Grunwald" by Jan Matejko (426 x 987 cm).
Aida Canvas. — This material, introduced under the French name Toile Colbert, is a description of linen cloth. It is also called " Aida Cloth," and Java Canvas ( which see), as well as " Fancy Oatmeal."